#FridayBookShare – All the Light We Cannot See

#FridayBookShare is an excellent for book lovers.  It was created by Shelley Wilson, in search of the ideal author/novel.

I love reading so I’m thrilled to have found Friday Book Share – here’s my latest post,  All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

The instructions are quite simple-

Here’s my #5 post: 

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

First line (paragraph): At dusk they pour from the sky. They blow across the ramparts, turn cartwheels over rooftops, flutter into the ravines between houses.  Entire streets swirl with them, flashing white against the cobbles. Urgent message to the inhabitants of this town, they say.  Depart immediately to open country. 

Recruit fans by adding the book blurb: 

A beautiful, stunningly ambitious novel about a blind French girl and German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.  Marie-Laure has been lind since the age of six.  Her father b a perfect miniature of their paris neighbourhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home.  But when the Nazis invade, father and daughter flee with a dangerous secret.

Werner is a German orphan, destined to labour in the same mine that claimed his father’s life,until he discovers a knack for engineering.  His talent wins him a place at a brutal military academy, but his way out of obscurity is built on suffering.

At the same time, far away in a walled city by the sea, an old man discovers new worlds without ever setting foot outside his home. But all around him, impending danger closes in.

Doerr’s combination of soaring imagination ad meticulous observation is electric.  As Europe is engulfed by war and lives collide unpredictably, ‘All the Light We Cannot See’ is a captivating and devastating elegy for innocence.

Introduce the main character using only three words – Marie-Laure is sixteen, blind and brave.

Delightful design –

Audience appeal:   I think this book would appeal to everybody, it is poignant, beautifully written and historical without being boring.  Genres:  fiction, historical, historical fiction, war, World War II

Your favourite line/scene: In a corner of the city, inside a tall, narrow house at Number 4 rue Vauborel, on the sixth and highest floor, a sightless sixteen year old named Marie-Laure LeBlanc kneels over a low table covered entirely with a model.  The model is a miniature of the city she kneels within and contains scale replicas of the hundreds of houses and shops and hotels within its walls. This is the introduction we get to Marie-Laure within the first section of the book entitled The Girl.  

The next few pages are about The Boy – Five streets to the north, a white-haired eighteen-year-old German private named Werner Pfennig wakes to a faint staccato hum. Little more than a purr.  Flies tapping at a far-off windowpane.

I love the way Doerr has started the book, from near the end and then working backwards to tell us the story of the two main characters and how close they are to each other without knowing each other.  He writes beautifully and I was at times mesmerised.

I’d love to hear your thoughts if you’ve read this book.

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I like reading so much I have created  a page on my blog that lists all the books I read throughout the year.   I started it in 2014/2015 and enjoyed the process so much I kept going into 2016. It’s a great way for me to remember what I’ve read and I try to write a brief comment about each book as well.

Here’s a link to my growing number of posts for #FridayBookShare.  I was also featured on Shelley’s blog as a reader – here’s the post Reader Spot Meet Book reviewer Debbie Harris.

Deb